Around the NPR hallways over the past 10 years and some, it’s been the tendency to think of him as a sweet old grandfather. That’s not how [Mike] Wallace remembered him. “He’s never been sweet,” he said.

“There was not a lot of small talk in Dan,” Wallace said. “And Dan had told me that. He had come the hard way, so to speak, and he wanted to make a name for himself in broadcasting, in news and he did not suffer fools gladly and he was not particularly interested in nonsense or pablum.”?